Worker Involvement - Resources

What resources will employee representatives need as committee members?

It is good practice to provide both health and safety representatives appointed by trade unions and those elected by your employees the same resources, although you are only required to do this for union-appointed representatives. Employee health and safety representatives need to have:

• time to prepare for meetings as management representatives would;
• access to the same information for the purposes of the discussion at the meetings; and
• training that is reasonable in the circumstances to allow them to perform their role, which includes attending health and safety committee meetings for union-appointed representatives. Training for representatives can help them to contribute equally to the committee's aims and purpose.

Being a member of the health and safety committee is part of a person's role as a health and safety representative, so they should not suffer a loss of pay when they attend meetings or carry out other activities on behalf of the committee.

• How to set up your H&S committee
• How your H&S committee will work
• Membership of your H&S committee
• Frequency of meetings
• Decision making
• What your H&S committee will do